so i am making a costume again this year and this time i want to have lots of lights and glow effects and i just heard about EL wire

i already found out that EL wire is just this copper wire that you can bend into any shape you want and you can cut it how ever long you want, but i am wondering how you power it.

do you need a whole power box for every strand of wire?
if you do, i will probly just keep a power box on my back or something and have the wire kind of blend while it goes through my arms and legs but is there a way that i can put wire all over it without it having to connect to 1 spot on the whole thing?

i dont necesarily need this done yet, but for later parts in the costume i could really use it :)

im sure there are multiple people wondering how exactly to "light up" their costume

Please forgive the FAQ cut and paste but they explain it better then I can.

GLOWIRE is an electroluminescent wire - a copper wire coated with a phosphorus material and wrapped with two tiny transmitter wires. It is then sealed in a waterproof casing. GLOWIRE looks very similar to neon when powered.

What makes it glow?
GLOWIRE must be powered by a driver (inverter) in order to glow. A driver takes a DC input voltage and provides an AC output voltage of approximately 120 volts. Both 9 volt and 12 volt drivers are available with varying frequencies ranging from 400 to 4000hz. Brightness is determined by voltage and frequency. The lower the frequency, the dimmer it glows, the higher frequency the brighter it glows.

Although it appears very bright in the photos they are also take in a dark enviroment.
At normal room lighting EL wire is almost imposible to tell if its illuminated.

Hope this helps. I have played with this stuff a bit and can anwser some questions if needed but there are other members on the forums with more exp then I.

Aleze

02-26-2011, 05:04 AM

I thought EL wire would be too dim . . . especially on stage. And I didn't want to spend too much money on my costume to get some really nice lights . . . plus I needed them to be small and wanted to avoid too much wiring. So I used throwies: http://www.instructables.com/id/LED-Throwies/